Oregon Coast by Camper Van, Part Four - God's Thumb and The Devil's Punchbowl

After Cannon Beach, it was time to continue our journey south. This mean we'd be entering cheese country, or, more specifically, Tillamook, OR.

We stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory where we did the cheese tasting, walked the self-guided tour of the factory, had lunch and, of course, ice cream. We even stopped in the gift shop -- something we don't do often -- to buy cheese curds for the road. I may have even picked up a pair of camper van dress socks.

After leaving the creamery, we headed for an early check-in at our next stop, Camp Lookout State Park. 

This was probably my least favorite campsite. The park was nice, but by chance I had reserved the only site in the whole campground completely covered with sand. It wasn't a big problem, it just made a trip that was already fairly labor intensive even more so with the repetitive cleaning of six tiny feet and the in-betweens of 36 tiny toes. 

We had fairly good luck with the weather up until this day, but after cooking dinner, the clouds moved in and a cold drizzle began to spray the side of the van. We quickly packed up, confining all the dirty dishes into one plastic bin, threw the folding camping chairs and scooters into the back of the van and took down the awning, before spending a cramped evening in the van, reading until the light faded to night.

The next morning was still gray, so we decided to roll out and...have breakfast at McDonald's back in Tillamook. We took our time, recharging our phones and watching ESPN, before starting south to Beverly Beach State Park, one of our longer drives. 

We tried breaking the drive up by stopping at some coastal sights along the way, God's Thumb and The Devil's Punchbowl, but the sky was still dark and foreboding and spitting an icy mist at us. 

After leaving The Devil's Punchbowl, we didn't have a plan, and I sensed we were about to lose the kids. Elise consulted her phone; there was a 3:30 showing of Toy Story 4 playing in Newport, but we didn't know where the movie theater was and we didn't know how long it would take to get there. 

We started driving towards Newport in search of a grocery store, before passing Newport Cinema at 3:20. I banked the camper van hard and careened into the parking lot. We speedily bought tickets for the matinee and two large buckets of buttered popcorn and sought shelter in the cavernous confines of a movie theater just north of Newport, OR.